Nice legs!
I was walking to work one morning, as I do every day. It was a crisp spring day and I was enjoying the morning air. On my way, I happened upon a hunched-over, wrinkly, octogenarian couple sitting on a bench. The man was smoking, and they were both drinking diet Coke. (Ah... breakfast of champions.) The woman had a walker next to her. I was thinking that, in their own way, they were cute, this ancient couple sitting side by side. I wondered fleetingly how many years they'd been together and what their relationship must be like... as you do when you see a couple like that.
As I passed by these two figures on the bench, the old man called out "Achla boker!" ["Great (slang) morning!"]. I couldn't tell whether he was talking to me or not, though I should have known... If you're wondering whether they're talking to you, they're talking to you.
I kept walking and before I was out of earshot, I heard him murmur in a low, raspy, cigarette-smoke voice "איזה רגליים יפות יש לה" ("What beautiful legs she has").
Laughter began to bubble up inside of me. The incongruity of the situation - this antediluvian man, closer to death than to life, sitting next to his wife, was commenting (to his wife?) on some woman's legs!
I scanned the area surreptitiously in an attempt to discover to whom he could be referring... surely some statuesque beautiful-legged supermodel was somewhere in the vicinity.
But there were no other women around.
The penny dropped; he'd been talking about ME! This was even MORE hysterically funny!
The laughter inside of me bubbled up, more and more, and threatened to spill out, but I didn't want to look like a madwoman laughing her head off in the street. I stifled the hysteria while walking as fast as my (beautiful) little legs would take me, eager to arrive at work. There I unburdened myself to my co-workers and let loose the laughter.
For a few years now, "Achla boker!" has been a common greeting among some of the staff. And it still makes me giggle.
As I passed by these two figures on the bench, the old man called out "Achla boker!" ["Great (slang) morning!"]. I couldn't tell whether he was talking to me or not, though I should have known... If you're wondering whether they're talking to you, they're talking to you.
I kept walking and before I was out of earshot, I heard him murmur in a low, raspy, cigarette-smoke voice "איזה רגליים יפות יש לה" ("What beautiful legs she has").
Laughter began to bubble up inside of me. The incongruity of the situation - this antediluvian man, closer to death than to life, sitting next to his wife, was commenting (to his wife?) on some woman's legs!
I scanned the area surreptitiously in an attempt to discover to whom he could be referring... surely some statuesque beautiful-legged supermodel was somewhere in the vicinity.
But there were no other women around.
The penny dropped; he'd been talking about ME! This was even MORE hysterically funny!
The laughter inside of me bubbled up, more and more, and threatened to spill out, but I didn't want to look like a madwoman laughing her head off in the street. I stifled the hysteria while walking as fast as my (beautiful) little legs would take me, eager to arrive at work. There I unburdened myself to my co-workers and let loose the laughter.
For a few years now, "Achla boker!" has been a common greeting among some of the staff. And it still makes me giggle.
For a relatively comprehensive list of Hebrew slang, check out the link. (Funny enough, "achla" is the first word on the list.)
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